


Borrowed Lives

by The Shameful Narcissist (AshRose)



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 04:51:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7561084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshRose/pseuds/The%20Shameful%20Narcissist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mid-canon speculation at the juncture of the Sleeping Forest.  The fated pair have history, and the last Cetra demands a sacrifice the Great General cannot refuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Lives

**“For as I live this borrowed life,**  
**This silence I shall keep.**  
**Today I breathe until I die,**  
**But never let me weep.”**  
**-“Borrowed Life”**

**  
**

**Borrowed Lives**

The sleeping forest awoke to the step of the Planet’s dearest child.  Ever fragile but never afraid, she ran without pause towards her fate.  Soft bangs brushed wind blossomed cheeks as the trees turned from grey to pure white.

            _Lonely…_

 _Yes, but never alone,_ she said without word to the breeze.  It joined sea and sky and all life between to be part of that intricate dance.  Beneath high hanging boughs she sank to her knees and the grass below bent without rue.  She was praying in the position she knew she would die as starlight white lilies grew round.  Not meaning to call them, she felt swift regret to be squandering such precious gifts, but the pulse of life was too great in this instant, knowing it soon would be silenced. 

            She squeezed her eyes shut, shielding the green that had always marked her as different.  No common hue, they shone with the color of the tide that dwelt inside all.  The memories were hard, but the prayer came easy…strength, light, and hope above all.  It would not be enough.  Not this last time.  Not enough to quench the darkness.  Her people’s last city awaited her shade, and she needed more than courage.

            There was no sound for warning or herald, but the maiden knew that he was there.  Opening her eyes, auburn veiled her vision to his sturdy, black boots standing close.  Their proximity startled though she hid the gasp as she lowered her hands to her thighs.

            In awe she looked up, lips pink and parting.  She always forgot just how tall…but more than that she forgot he was beautiful, despite darkness that ate as his heart.  A winter angel draped in black with moonlight swirled around.  His skin was whiter than alabaster cold as if the sun were too frightened to touch, and the hollows dark beneath his eyes were spilled with emerald light.  She remembered again how to breathe through her awe and wished memory would grant her this grace.  As though in his absence there was a forgetting cast upon like a spell.  The wind then in mocking blew silver strands forward so they barely brushed her cheeks.

            He was looking down at her with face still as marble, clenching gloved hands into fists.  The living heat of those green eyes could bring grown men to their knees, and slit pupils to shame the king of cats cut sharper than the sword at his side.  Behind dark lashes longer than hers, the Mako light sheared through, and though she knew she had no choice, the fragile maid still shook.

            “You know I will not do this.”  And she quivered all the more.  His low voice awakened deep heat in her skin, and she blushed to suppress the plea.  It was almost enough to abandon her purpose and give into her shameful desire.

            “And you know we have no choice.”  It had always been there.  The unspoken arrangement.  Ever since he’d protected her long ago in the labs before they could make separate escapes.  Though neither one was truly free.  All the players knew the farce, the jailers and the jailed.  A bigger cage was still a prison even if it contained the world.

            “The darkness is coming.”  She held taut his gaze, though blinked as he did not. “And the light will soon be veiled.”

            “This is madness, Aeris.” He turned away, ripping fingers through silver hair.  No matter how ripped how flung or torn, it always fell in perfection.  The high bangs ever cross his face were just the same as hers.

            _And no matter how blood soaked,_ she thought without willing, _it will always shine so fair._

            “No, Sephiroth,” she said aloud but so softly, “the madness is yet to come…”

            He glared at her over his shoulder, staining armor with verdant light.

            “You are the one it will corrupt.”

            “That will never happen.”  He stepped slowly toward her like a cat in the hunt.  Aeris just shook her head.  As though she had seen.  As though it had happened.  As though past and future had met.

            “It will.”  Her own small hands clenched tight.  “Your very cells will betray your will.  Even now you fight…”

            And in his eyes arose a gleam as though woken at those words.  It came not from the Mako that swirled in his veins, but from something far deeper and old.  The Planet’s dear child knew true fear then as the ground beneath keened lament.

            “The horror that gnaws at the heart of the world.  The thing that we must stop.”  She could feel the touch of that terrible corruption trying to worm beneath her skin.  He blinked in that instant and the glow became true, though his jaw clenched on words to curse fate.

            “You can rage against heaven.  Hate the gods if you must.  You know it will do no good.”

            The maledictions he spewed were so coarse in their vehemence Aeris wanted to stop her ears.  When he was done, silence full reigned as if the forest were too shamed to echo. 

Sephiroth walked slowly back to where she knelt, whispering, “Why me?”

            The wrath made him paler as green light was swallowed in the darkness beneath his eyes.

            “You’ve killed people before.  Women, children…”  She looked away for the pain of that truth and forced herself not to think.

            “That was different.  That was war.” His voice was flat with no regret.  “And I have never killed a child.”

            “There were children in Nibelheim…”

            The general’s lip curled in a bitter sneer.  “That was different, too.”  Again he turned away from her.  Unable to witness the pre-gifted forgiveness as she begged him to do the most foul.  His hair swept soft against his coat like snow in the abyss.  Closing his eyes to what was unseen, even in pain he was nothing but beauty.

            “Do you remember, Sephiroth?” Soft but relentless, and Mako swirled cold for the past.

            “I remember…”  She froze to the sight of overlarge iris and slit pupil oh so spare.  “I remember watching from the outside as hatred and rage took me over for reasons that now seem so faint.  And when it was done and the world lay in ashes, the dead were still able to scream.”

            “The reasons were for it alone and the cruel lies you were told.”

            His hair washed his vision but still he could see her kneeling beneath the white tree.  Unknowing in her innocence how words could find old wounds.

            “You know they were lies now, don’t you?”

            Still as a statue Sephiroth stood, and his eyes lit the pale of her face.  Aeris sighed and clasped her hands tighter, praying pain give her strength to go on.  

“It is beyond that which is monstrous,” the general whispered, “but I’m a monster, too.”

            “And you won’t even know that you’re broken.”

            He asked once again, “Why me?”

            Her neck ached to look far up at him, but he deserved to know all the truth.

            “So that you can become the world’s enemy.  In this we have a chance.”

            “By me losing my reason to utter insanity and by you losing your life?!  How Aeris?  How will my murdering you bring the faintest bit of hope to the world?”  He wanted to shake her, she looked so calm, hiding her turmoil well.

            “Don’t think of it as murder.”  She trembled as the Planet softly called her name.  “Think of it as putting me where I must be.”

              “You still have not said why it must be _me._ ” He glowered still, unapologetic as she shivered in the cold green light.  “Why not the boy?”

            Aeris never imagined a voice of such greatness could hold hollow desperation.  She tried to keep the same from her face, but it was impossible to hide the feeling there.  Agony, sorrow, and something more shattered his last ounce of composure.  The light in his eyes boiled over in spilling with terrible searing heat. 

Sephiroth lunged for her faster than Aeris could blink, clutching her upper arms.  His hands slid to her waist as he lifted her up, envy near burning her face.  Like the truth of his beauty, she always forgot how incredibly strong he was until those powerful hands were upon her with no hope of any escape.

            “And you think well of this boy, don’t you?” he hissed, though he kept his grip gentle around.  The heat from those eyes would’ve scorched lesser lashes, but Aeris did not turn away.

            “He will lead the others against you,” she whispered, “but I think much better of you.  You are the one who will be vilified, and none will ever know the truth…”

            She bit her lip as he stood tall with one arm around her waist.  Her feet hung dangling in their old boots as the maiden gasped to immense power.  Splaying her limbs on cold epaulets, Aeris was dual captured by angel’s face: the beauty, the darkness, the towering height wove silver binding spells.  Skin called to skin, and she looked in surprise for the gloves that had been swiftly shed.  Despite his past rage and fierce jealousy, beyond gentleness brushed at her cheek.  _Always so careful,_ she wanted to weep.  _Always so careful with me.  N-Not like the others with needles and tests, but they never shared what we have…_

“Sephiroth…please,” Aeris near moaned, struggling to pull herself higher.  The hint of a smile shadowed his lips as he tossed the maid into both arms.  Effortless, easy, the grace of the strong, the song of the all-powerful.  Clinging to steel, she parted her lips, and his were as eager to meld.  He crushed her so close, the voice of her need vibrated through their tongues.

            Beneath the white tree, he laid Aeris down, as she smoothed back that moonlight hair.  His face mocked all angels, and she wanted to sear the sight into summer eyes.  Over his cheek, along his jaw line, the flower maid drew fragile finger.  Tracing the straps that crossed over his chest ‘til he drove his tongue in her again.

            Pink buttons parted without a protest to reveal those cream white thighs.  He reaction was painted in Mako’s gleam as what he saw in her face spurred him on.   Voice a low song poured in her ear made her breath come too fast as she begged.  Her mouth opened like a flower before his tongue as the little maid whimpered her want.  He tightened his hand around her frail wrists, holding them over her head.  Aeris arched her back as his teeth scored her throat, his tongue playing patterns in swirl.  Each kiss a blessing descending down ‘til her breasts bore the brunt of that heat.  He gazed up with half smile, curling one end, as Aeris claimed them for her own.  He nibbled her lower, and she tangled her fingers in endless silken skein.

            Her braid came undone at the touch of his fingers so moonlight and auburn swirled.  Laid in the lilies so called by her light, the Cetra framed the fallen’s face.  She was ready for him, overflowing, and willing, though pulled so terribly taut.  He dared not drive deeply.  That would come later… The light from his eyes cut enough.  Yet ever willing, her thighs more spread, and each tempered thrust brought a squeak.

            When it was over and their clothes were straightened, she knelt now for she could not stand.  Salt covered red cheeks, but Aeris knew not if she wept for joy or rue.

            “My heart was always yours to break.”  His low voice stirred the shadows that would not dare creep close.  The maid looked down at the hands in her lap, while the voice of the world murmured still.  A quiet tear slipped past her guarding, so grateful to not be forsaken.

            “I suppose,” she said with voice now hoarse, “it is only fair I return the favor.”

            He lowered his head accepting at last as dying day framed him in glory.  Then swift to surprise he knelt as she did, tilting her chin for a final kiss.  A slow caress of two tongues dancing as he smoothed that tear with his thumb.

            Sephiroth stood still full of grace, holding to her like a wish.  She rose as far as her knees would allow with a whimper at the release.  He gazed down at the lilies bleeding their fragrance, crushed and dying at her feet.  “The things that are most beautiful die long before their time.”  He cupped the pale, well salted cheek with hands again cloaked in black.

            “Some things were never meant to last…” Aeris answered refusing to let her voice break.

            “I give you this promise then.”  He stood tall in his vow, the Great General again, and touched brief the Masamune.  “It is so sharp you will not feel it.” 

All that he bore in these final moments was hidden in the light of his eyes.  He yearned for her still as Aeris believed him, waiting for what he did not know.  Perhaps for her to tell him that all was a farce and beg him take her away, but he’d seen too much in his hard life to not doubt the horror was true.

            Aeris freed her tongue when the forest enclosed him, overjoyed but not proud she had held.  Memory would more than match what death could not take too soon.

 

*

 

            Aeris was waiting in the position she’d die in on an altar made of light.  Nothing else mattered but the words of her prayer as she pleaded for hope to come true.  Not the hard sphere held between her soft palms, nor the boy with his sword raised in anguish.  _The players in their places,_ she had to believe, _or else it’s all in vain._

The thought came to him as he flew in the gleam of flawless steel…to miss, to falter, to strike the boy who he saw in rage threatened her life.  But Sephiroth knew he could not betray her, not on the oath he had sworn.

            It was as clean as he could make it and her heart was split in two.  The red heat of purity washed the face of death, but winter could never be melted.  As the sword wept the blood of the innocent, its master shed tear unseen.  It swept away reason and sanity, sundering all memories so passed.  The horror then rose up to claim him, sword shedding gore like a second skin.  No more for his memory for lies were his mantra.  He did not even watch her fall.  Still in death, the murdered could smile, as the gates of the world opened wide.  The first wheel had been set into motion, and he had kept this promise for her.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote at the beginning is from a poem of my own with a similar title, ["Borrowed Life"](https://ash1rose.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/borrowed-life/). It wasn't the inspiration for this story (Snape's death pact relationship with Dumbledore in _Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince_ was), but the name and verse solidified many of the thoughts and feelings that were surely running through Aeris's head.


End file.
